Monday, August 15, 2016

Last week I
participated in a press tour of Philadelphia’s
new Mormon temple. On the way to the event I thought of my introduction to
Mormonism as a teenager.

After a Mormon
family moved into our neighborhood, I quickly read the only Mormon book in my
high school library: Joseph Smith’s No
Man Knows My History. Joseph Smith,
the founder of the Mormon Church (established in 1830), claimed to have had a
visitation from an angel who showed where to dig to find the ancient religious
history of American civilization on a hill near Palmyra,
New York.
That history was engraved on metal plates and became The Book of Mormon.The Book of Mormon purports to be the story of Jesus Christ’s
presence in the Americas
after his death and resurrection in Jerusalem.

One other memory
concerns a trip I made with my parents to the 1964-65 New
York World’s Fair. Here I saw a number of religious
sites, such as the Vatican Pavilion, a Russian Orthodox chapel, and the Mormon
Pavilion. What stood out for me in the Mormon Pavilion was the famous copy of
the Christus statue (by Thorvaldsen) in Copenhagen

The tall,
imposing white statue of Christ was conceived by the Mormon Church for the 3 million
dollar Pavilion. Its sheer size and dominance not only commanded attention, but
it helped put the Church into the popular consciousness. The Christus statue
followed the accepted Mormon practice of representing Jesus as striking and
extraordinarily handsome. Mormon Jesus’ were not dark and swarthy Rembrandt
likenesses but cleft chinned, blue eyed, well built golden or auburn haired
model gladiators. This is the Jesus of
Jeffrey Hunter in King of Kings, not
the thin, ascetically inclined Jesus in Pier Pablo Pasolini’s wonderful, The Gospel According to Saint Matthew.

The New
York World’s Fair, in fact, was a pivotal moment for
the Mormon Church. “…The huge leap forward
initiated by the Mormon Pavilion must be considered a seminal event in the evolution
of the Church’s use of media in spreading the gospel message to the world,”
writes Brent L. Top, dean of religious education at Brigham Young
University. “From that time to the
present day, the Church’s outreach through its use of technology and media has
increased steadily and exponentially.”

I’ll say.

This fact was clearly
in evidence during the PhiladelphiaTemple’s first media
tour.

The press group of
about 22 people included print and broadcast media. A Fox News reporter was
there along with her camera crew. There were other unidentified camera crews
and a number of photographers although no pictures were permitted inside the
temple itself since it is considered the House of the Lord. The press met in
the less than inspiring Robert A.M. Stern-designed Meeting House, the place for
Mormon Sunday worship, since the Temple is reserved for marriages (and the
“sealing” of those marriages for eternity) and for the baptism of the deceased.
The tour was to last 2 hours with light refreshments at the end.

There are 112
operating Mormon temples worldwide. At times the building of a temple or a
Mormon institution caused some controversy. In 1984, when ground was broken in
the MountScopus
area of Jerusalem for the Brigham
Young University Jerusalem campus, all hell broke out. Ultra Orthodox Jews saw
this invasion of Mormons from Utah
as a proselytizing threat and sought to have construction halted. The Mormon
Church had to hire security guards to proceed with the project. A famous ultra Orthodox pop star, Mordechai
Ben David, even composed a hit single titled “Jerusalem is Not for Sale.”

Jerusalem is not for sale!

Voices, crying, thundering throughout our
cities,

You better run for your life, back to Utah overnight,

Before the mountaintop opens wide to swallow
you inside.

Today the BYU Jerusalem campus hardly
raises an eyebrow although students there must sign a contract promising not to
missionize.

The silver haired Wilson
had a sleek ‘Father Knows Best’ demeanor. He took us from the Meeting House to
the Temple entrance where coverings
were put over our shoes. The shoe coverings were to keep street dirt off the
meticulously clean Temple floors
and rugs.

Inside the Temple,
Wilson described the furnishings
and the commissioned art on the walls, including several original murals. He
also explained how the Temple’s
features were aligned to fit a southeastern Pennsylvania
and Philadelphia theme, right down
to the temple’s main door and frame with its bas-relief mountain laurel “Pennsylvania”
blossom design. “We believe that the founding of this country was divinely
inspired,” he said.

The interior of
the temple is an extravaganza of quality craftsmanship. Nowhere will you find
flimsy/cheap construction materials that you see in new construction all over
town. There are no thin walls or doors that weigh a few ounces. One astonished
journalist asked how the temple was able to ward off the sound of outside
traffic. Wilson replied, “With very
thick walls.”

Press
questions about the Mormon religion began early on. This was to be expected,
given that much of the tour included references to Mormon theology and
doctrine. These references were woven into descriptions of the temple’s Ionic,
Doric and Corinthian columns, the decorative lighting, flooring, the outside
fence, walkways and the landscaping. “We
believe that this is the Lord’s House,” Wilson reiterated, something that many
Christian denominations might ascribe to in theory but that in practice falls
short, especially when one considers those Protestant sanctuaries that are used
for services on Sunday but on Tuesdays are transformed into jazz festival
arenas or concert halls.

Emaneul
Swedenborg, A Swedish scientist, mystic and founder of the SwedenborgianChurch, wrote that heaven is filled
with cities and houses of many different types. There are mansions and simple
homes, lavish communities and humble communities. We reap in heaven what we sow in life,
meaning that those who were terrifically
good in life live in afterlife mansions of marvelous splendor, while those
who lived mediocre lives on earth inhabit less than spectacular ‘heavenly’
neighborhoods.

In Mormonism,
there’s a belief that non-Mormon ancestors in the after life are free to accept
or reject the offer of baptism into the Mormon faith by living relatives or
friends. A yes answer, however, would transfer the deceased to a
Swedenborg-like greater heaven.

In the
Philadelphia temple, each floor is designed as a stairway to Heaven, so as one
goes higher the furnishings and the chandeliers on each floor become more
elaborate until one reaches the apex, or the Celestial Room, the most scared
and beautiful room in the temple.

In the Celestial
Room the hanging chandelier fans out into the room like an exploding comet.
Visiting Mormons in good standing (Mormons must get a recommend pass from their
bishop or stake leader in order to enter the temple) pray and meditate here
despite the fact that this room, as well as the entire temple, tends to
resemble a lavish Ritz Carlton Hotel with a lot of pictures of Jesus.

The press’
fascination with Mormonism came to a fore at the Baptismal Font. Generally, a
concerted design effort would be necessary to transform a baptismal area into a
secular looking space, but one can see elements of that here for it is not hard
to imagine someone perceiving this space, despite its sacred nature, as a hot
tube of the highest quality, perhaps a faux Disney recreation of the baths of
ancient Rome. Still, ‘spectacular’
doesn’t begin to describe the Font area that had journalists gazing into the
pool of water as if lost in the bliss of hypnosis. Like characters in a Robert Altman film, we
journalists formed a long line along the circumference of the curving marble
barrier that overlooked the oxen accented pool as questions about Mormonism
ricocheted back and forth like tennis balls.

The Baptismal Font
was to me the highlight of the tour, although later in the marriage sealing
room, where couples kneel facing one another across a small altar to have their
marriages sealed for all eternity, things got a little dicey.

A journalist
inappropriately dressed in shorts, a tight T-shirt and a frayed baseball cap,
asked Wilson if same sex marriages
are preformed in the sealing room.

The question
seemed to come across as a triggering device, designed to set off a series of
consecutive explosive comments from other members of the press, all related to
same sex marriage and engineered to put Wilson
on the defensive.

Perhaps it was
possible that a reporter in this day and age had no clue about the Mormon stand
on same sex marriage. Americans, after all, are tremendously ignorant about
religion. This is why the wife of one visiting Mormon Elder told me that people
who should know better mistake her for a Mennonite or Amish. “But would an Amish
woman wear these kinds of heels?” she asked me, showing me her feet ensconced
in the brightest of the bright Frederick’s of Hollywood heels that would
attract a thumbs up at a Philly Style magazine party.

As for that
baseball capped reporter, his question did set off a few same sex marriage
follow up comments, although the ever savvy Wilson
was able to defuse whatever small bomb lay hidden in the reporter’s initial
inquiry.

The Democratic National
Convention is now history. City streets are quieter, the traffic less daunting,
and there’s finally a sense of being able to breathe easy. Though a national
convention may be good for a city’s PR image, sometimes for residents the going
can get rough. An overcrowded Frankford Market El and Broad Street subway filled
with swat teams and wall to wall people is not a pretty experience.

But on Monday, July 24, the
first day of the convention, expectations were bright. That’s when I headed to
the Jill Stein for President Green Party protest in front of City Hall and got
an eye full. This protest reminded me of the Occupy Philly protests a few years
ago and of certain demonstrations I participated in the early 1970s. I will
always feel a connection to grassroots protest even as some of my political
views evolve.

The Green Party’s ‘Power to the
People’ 2016 platform is attractive enough. The Green vision it to end world
poverty, put a moratorium on pesticides and institute community control of the
police rather than the other way around. The Greens also want to terminate
unconstitutional surveillance on American citizens. These are noble goals.

I remember what happened to
the Greens in 2008 when their presidential ticket, Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala
were arrested and handcuffed to a chair for 8 hours for attempting to
participate in the Hofstra University Obama-Romney debate. Stein and Honkala
should have been included in that debate.
Thirty years ago presidential debates were sponsored by the League of
Women Voters. That’s when any third party presidential candidates on the ballot
in enough states were invited to debate the Republican and Democratic nominee
for president.

In 1988, the League withdrew
its sponsorship of presidential debates because of the demands of the two party
system. League President Nancy M. Neuman said at that time that “the demands of
the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter,”
and that “the candidates’ organizations aim to add debates to their list of
campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and honest answers to
tough questions.”

It was fascinating to hear
Stein supporter Chris Hedges from Truthdig and then observe the Green
protestors (of all ages), some of whom were in costume, like the woman dressed
as Hillary, the Queen of Death (based
on Hillary’s reputation as an interventionist with a fondness for starting
foreign wars).Large Green Party flags fluttered in the afternoon breeze as
activists from the 60s chanted the same chants anti war protestors chanted
during Vietnam War sit ins.

I heard lots of ‘up’ talk in
the crowd about Bernie pulling a fast one during the convention. No, he would
not capitulate to the corporate Clinton, but he “had a
surprise in mind,” some said. Utopian dreams die heard. I kept my mouth shut
and did not share my belief that Bernie had nothing in mind
except…capitulation.

A band of youthful drummers
caught my attention with the following chant:

Communist Revolution is the only
solution

The Communist Revolution wrecked havoc in Russia and ended in
failure. The French Revolution, as Jonah Goldberg has written, was “the first fascist
revolution to turn politics into a religion. Accordingly, they declared war on
Christianity, attempting to purge it from society and replace it with a
"secular" faith.”

While we’re at it, let’s not
forget this pro-revolution maxim from Thomas Jefferson: “If you discourage
mutiny and riot what check is there on government?”

Green Party dress was decidedly downtrodden and raw; frumpy shorts,
pigtails askew, shredded baseball caps, pony tails and the occasional
‘culturally appropriated’ dreadlocks on tall thin activist white men (some of
whom had a man bun on top of the dreads). Unfortunately for the Greens, the
numbers of protestors were not large enough to shut down the DNC at Wells
Fargo, the original goal of the march. Whole
Earth Catalog style post hippie costumes, floppy hats and black anarchist
flags would never win over America’s heartland. A
cosmetic makeover might be a good first step to start this revolution.

Next stop on my list was the
Wells Fargo building. I had my US Secret Service photo ID badge and my green
Arena pass around my neck. A green Arena pass got you inside the Arena but not
inside the actual Hall where you could sit down and watch the convention. Most
press organizations sans big names like The
New York Times had green Arena passes. Monday night, being the first night
of the DNC, the ASK ME volunteers were quite liberal in allowing green ID press
into the seating area, but green press passes were essentially useless unless
one enjoyed standing for hours, or sitting on the Arena floor like a homeless
person in front of 7/11. The DNC was quite stingy in its allotment of Hall
press passes. In some ways it seemed to me that the ASK ME volunteers had it
better than credentialed press.

I sat in the upper tiers in
the Hall Monday night with my green pass. I was behind the stage so I only saw
the backs (and behinds) of Paul Simon, Al Franken, Elizabeth Warren, Michelle
Obama and Bernie Sanders. Two hipster DC
online publishers who told me they were conservative libertarians sat beside
me. Most of the press did not applaud or cheer the speakers although when
Bernie Sanders mounted the podium, very few people did not lean forward in
their seats.

Before each speech, DNC pages
distributed banners and signs with a slogan or the name of the next speaker.
This was for the benefit of the television audience. Generally, journalists
attending political conventions do not show support for candidates, so the
props offered by the pages went nowhere in the press section although a few
newbie reporters from college newspapers scooped them up, causing one of the
libertarian editors to remark, “Those kid reporters don’t know what they’re
doing.”

On Monday night there didn’t
seem to be many American flags on the floor. For some people this may not be an
important matter, but it did catch the eye of certain conservatives like writer
Tammy Baldwin, who noted, “Americans notice things like no American flags on
the DNC convention stage. It might be small to some people, but it’s a
statement…. After criticism mounted, they added them the second night…” The
lack of flags was more than amply made up for by a double tsunami of balloons,
some as large as beach balls and small planets, that fell from the ceiling like
a plague of locusts over the Clinton-Kaine team during the convention’s closing
moments.

Viewers watched as the Clinton team seemed to
walk ankle deep in a sea of rubber. I couldn’t help but notice a dazed looking
Hillary bending over slowly, as if in extreme arthritic pain, to pick up a
balloon and then throw it to Bill or Chelsea. The balloon extravaganza was
clearly the most bizarre moment of the convention and called to mind the antics
of that famous clown, Clarabell.

I found much to admire in the
behavior of Bernie Sanders supporters. Some of them came dressed in funny hats,
capes and motorcycle gear. The emotional build up to Sanders’ speech had all
the tension of a Wagnerian opera. Bernie, however, still had many detractors.
Charles Hunt of The Washington Times,
wrote: “During his quarter-century in
Congress, Mr. Sandershas been viewed as something of a gadfly with
Tourette’s syndrome. Always dressed like a homeless person shambling along the
hallways, Democrats felt sorry for him and let him into their meetings. He
looked like he needed a cup of coffee and free danishes.”

Well, whoever said that
politics was charitable?

On Thursday evening, the night
of Hillary’s speech, there were far fewer Sanders supporters on the floor.
Hillary’s ‘Stronger Together Crowd’ was out in force: lots of women in black
men’s suits and “Planned Parenthood’ bob cut hair dos.

I got a taste of the
privileged political class when I went up the wrong escalator on Hillary night
and wound up in a high donor area with special cocktail lounges and restaurant
skyboxes serving crab, lobster and cherry filled Manhattans. Culinary security
was out in force, so I did not get in. All in all, there were five intense
security check points one had to go through before arriving in the Hall.

On Hillary night, Monday’s
generous press pass atmosphere had disappeared. Ask Me volunteers were now
guarded the Hall gateways like 1950s Communist border guards. I tried to
negotiate a seat several times, but failed.

I made do with touring the (so
called) food courts, and noticed right away that Wells Fargo wasn’t doing the
Democrats any favors: small bottled water sold for 4.50 a bottle, and a slice
of pizza was double that.

When the “enough is enough”
alarm sounded within me, I left for home and watched Hillary’s acceptance
speech online.

Followers

About Me

I am a Philadelphia-based author/journalist, the author of nine published books, including: The Cliffs of Aries (1988), Two Novellas: Walking Water & After All This (1989), The Boy on the Bicycle (1991-1994), Manayunk (1997), Gay and Lesbian Philadelphia (2000), Tropic of Libra (2002), Out in History and Philadelphia Architecture (2005)and SPORE (2010). In 1990, Two Novellas was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and a Hugo Award. Winner of the 2005 Philadelphia AIA Lewis Mumford Two Novellas rewritten and retitled for Starbooks Press: Walking on Water & After All This, available as an e-book. Winner of the Philadelphia AIA 2005 Lewis Mumford Award for Architectural Journalism. I am currently the City Beat editor at ICON Magazine, a contributing editor/writer at The Weekly Press, and a weekly columnist (The Local Lens) for Philadelphia’s SPIRIT Community Newspapers. I am the Religion Editor for the Lambda Book Report, and have written for Philadelphia's Broad Street Review, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News.
www.tnickels.net